Headlight Anthology

Headlight is an annual journal published by graduate students in the English Department of Concordia University. Headlight continues to publish the best in contemporary creative writing, both from Concordia students and from the greater Montreal community. The anthology publishes poetry, short fiction, drama, creative non-fiction, as well as photography and mixed media. Our mandate is to publish new and exciting voices, strengthen our local emerging community of writers, and represent Concordia University and Montreal within the Canadian writing and publishing scene.

This year, for Headlight‘s 21s birthday, we are looking for submissions which explore the theme of Interruptions:

What happens when your headlight breaks? Or maybe even your entire car? We’ve come to expect and even rely on such breakdowns or interruptions in everyday life. Big or small, exciting or irritating, interruptions take us down new paths or, at the very least, force us to stop and think about power relations, about traditions and innovations, about vulnerability.

We now interrupt this program to give you a chance to tell us about your own most intriguing interruptions.

Headlight is currently looking for a graduate student from Concordia’s English program to fill the position of treasurer. If you are interested in applying for this position, please email the Headlight team at headlightanthology@gmail.com

We’re celebrating the release of our 20th issue with a night of readings! Come out to hear pieces from the journal, and to meet our lovely contributors and editorial team. Copies of the journal will be available for purchase.

Headlight Anthology is an annual journal published by graduate students in the English Department of Concordia University. Now in its twentieth year, Headlight continues to publish the best in contemporary creative writing, both from Concordia students and across the greater Montreal community. The anthology publishes poetry, short fiction, drama, creative non-fiction, as well as photography and mixed media. Our mandate is to publish new and exciting voices, strengthen our local emerging community of writers, and represent Concordia University and Montreal within the Canadian writing and publishing scene.

We are now accepting submissions for Headlight Anthology’s twentieth edition. We invite writers to explore and interpret this year’s theme of 20/20.

20/20 is when things come into focus, perfectly, like 20/20 vision, or the adage that “hindsight is 20/20.” 20/20 is also a fraction, a perfect 1/1 and 10/10, and can be endlessly divided and multiplied. It’s also a sign of success, a perfect 100%. On the flipside, it’s a sign of testing, of evaluation; something that can motivate us or discourage us. It’s also an age, a time that is for many a bridge between our bildungsroman coming-of-age era and the dawn of early adulthood. A “score” is the term used for a group of 20, and is used to connote many–as in “scores of submissions to the journal.” 20 is the basis for vigesimal number systems. We could go on, but we want to hear what 20/20 means to you.

You can submit:

Fiction (up to 2000 words)

Poetry (3 poems or up to 3 pages)

Non-fiction (up to 2000 words)

Visual Art (up to 3 images)

Email submissions to headlightanthology@gmail.com

Written submissions should be in .doc or .docx format, and visual submissions should be high resolution .png format.

Please ensure that your name does not appear anywhere on the manuscript.

Headlight is currently seeking graduate students from Concordia to join our editorial team for 2016-2017.

This is an opportunity to approach creative writing more deeply by engaging closely with works of poetry, fiction, and non-fiction from the perspective of an editor. Working in close proximity with authors will allow editors to develop a fine critical eye for various genres of writing. Responsibilities include: reading submissions, vetting submissions, working with other editors, and editing individual pieces.

Former student editors Chalsley Taylor, Domenica Martinello, Geneviève Robichaud, and Larissa Andrusyshyn discuss their undergraduate and graduate publishing and editing experience and their current work in the industry, from editing to managing to writing and more.

Join us on Thursday, March 17 at 4PM for an engaging discussion on publishing and editing, moderated by student organizers Kailey Havelock and Karissa LaRocque. Find the most up-to-date information on Facebook, Twitter, or soliloquies.ca.

Editors Talking Editing: The Other Side of Submittable

Kailey Havelock: In an increasingly digital world, what do you envision as the future of publishing? How does the job of the editor change when computer programs can do so much now, and what potential might this change open up? Do you think publishing will move to the web exclusively, or will literary publications stay in print?

Chalsley Taylor: Digital applications provide vital support, but it falls to our human editors to to source and curate creative work. That said, the more digital publishing tools we have at our disposal, the more possibilities we create for ourselves. I don’t believe the rapid growth of digital publishing means the extinction of print media. Print offers us the physical object we can’t (as of yet) get digitally; however, the standards for that physical object are higher now, in terms of aesthetic appeal, singularity, etc. Likewise, digital publications have the capacity to incorporate a greater variety of media than print can manage.

Domenica Martinello: The future of publishing is hybrid and finely curated. Print will never die, nor will the Internet. Digital spaces have destabilized some of the old guard’s print oligopoly—suddenly there’s this breathing room for risk and innovation, for interdisciplinary and multimedia work, for more fragmented tastes. At the same time, the unfiltered glut of “stuff” produced online makes the physical print journal just as refreshing and valuable as ever. It could be the Gemini in me, but: If editors can harness both the immediacy of the digital (through social media, an online supplement, a blog, etc.) and the intentionality of a well-crafted, thoughtfully curated print journal, they’ve found the sweet spot.

Geneviève Robichaud: I have just spent the morning enveloped in the task of writing about a book of which there is none—Fernando Pessoa’s The Book of Disquiet—and so I feel compelled to answer that, while I cannot imagine addressing the question of the future of publishing, I am interested in works that move beyond the print and digital binary. Performance lectures, for instance, are a way to open the dialogue to a range of ways the sovereignty of the book gets tested, elasticized. Of course, there are several others… many of them located in a combinatory practice that extends beyond a single discipline or medium.

Larissa Andrusyshyn: I do think publishing will see an increased presence on the web. But I don’t think books or literary magazines will disappear. The feel and smell of a book, the place it has on a bookshelf, nothing will change that. But think of how accessible our work can be now, with a smartphone in just about anyone’s pocket; we have an opportunity to reach a diverse audience, more than ever before. But the job of an editor does not change that much. Computers are still hugely fallible, especially when it comes to poetry (layout and playing with syntax), and I don’t foresee a program that can make critical editorial suggestions to an author appearing in the near future. The editor will still curate the publication. They organize the other editors and designers and have the duty to maintain the tone of the magazine and the direction it will take going forward. Also, if there ever was a computer program that would secure funds, organize launches, and do our grant writing for us, well, I’d be plenty surprised. This is the realm of humans, and always will be.

Panelists

Chalsley Taylor spends her time in Montreal, working towards an MA at Concordia University. Her research and creative interests centre around race, second generation identity, and the politics of place. Currently, Chalsley is the photography editor and art director at carte blanche.

Domenica Martinello is a Toronto-based writer originally from Montréal, Québec. She is the head of publicity for the literary journal The Puritan, and interviews editor for CWILA: Canadian Women in Literary Arts. In Fall 2016 she will begin her MFA in poetry at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop.

Larissa Andrusyshyn’s first poetry collection, Mammoth (DC Books, 2010), was shortlisted for the Quebec Writers’ Federation First Book Prize and the Kobzar Literary Award. Her poems have been long-listed for the CBC Poetry Prize and shortlisted for Arc Magazine‘s Poem of the Year and the 3macs carte blanche prize. Her second collection, Proof (DC Books), was released last spring. She is the reviews editor at Matrix Magazine and she facilitates creative writing workshops in Montreal.

We’ve extended our deadline for our call for Submissions and call for Editors!

We will now be accepting works of poetry, fiction, non-fiction, and visual arts until Sunday, December 20th at midnight from fellow Concordians, Alumni, and residents of Montreal. Any fellow Concordia English Graduate students who are interested in helping out with the vetting and editorial process also have until Sunday, December 20th at midnight to submit a cover letter and CV.

Please submit your work in .doc or .docx format to headlightanthology@gmail.com and provide a 100-word bio in the body of the email. All personal information should be removed from the work you’re submitting. Please note that we do not accept work that has already been published.

Headlight is looking for Concordia Graduate students to join our editorial board for the 2015-2016 year.

If you’re a journal lover, close reader, and careful editor, we want you to help curate our 19th edition of creative writing from the Concordia and Montreal community. Headlight accepts works of poetry, prose, fiction, non-fiction, and visual art from all Concordia students and alumni, as well as from current residents of Montreal.

We are now accepting submissions for
Headlight 19: SOLIPSIST

Concordia students, alumni, and current residents of Montréal are encouraged to submit work to Concordia’s graduate literary anthology. Explore and interpret this year’s theme of SOLIPSIST through self-revelations, self circulations, selfies, and getting stuck in your own head.

Headlight is offering a call-out for Editor-in-Chief positions for the 2015-2016 academic year. If you’re interested in getting involved with Concordia’s graduate student anthology, submit a CV and brief cover letter to headlightanthology@gmail.com by Sunday, September 6th, 2015. A position description is below:

Headlight Anthology Editor-in-Chief Position

As a team, the Headlight Editors-in-Chief will be responsible for every aspect of the anthology, including its mandate, promotion, content, and finances:

-The mandate, scope, readership, appearance, and content of the anthology.

-Apply for and follow up on internal funding to support the production of the anthology, apply for monetary transfers, and keep track of funding bodies and processes for next year’s team.

-Act as liaison between students and administration

-Oversee production, including the call for submissions, the selection process, and launch preparation in the spring.

Perks:

-Headlight‘s mandate is to promote student work and to develop the Concordia university literary community. Beyond this, the Editor-in-Chief(s) has a unique and exciting opportunity for creative freedom. Along with their team, they have the opportunity to make it “their own” by choosing the design, format, genre, and style. They have the power to transform the anthology to best serve the student body.

-The position serves as excellent personal and professional experience. It is a strong presence on a CV if one goes into publishing and is highly regarded by other related fields as well.

-One has the opportunity to collaborate directly with students and faculty.

The position is voluntary. It can be a lot of work, but between three or four Editors-in-Chief, it is quite manageable.